Chapter 6
A KISS
Maybe this was a standard first kiss, me clumsy and him hesitant, tiny movements, as if we were testing each other. And then his hand was at the back of my neck, tangling in my braid, and our lips were moving faster, surer, and I wanted…to taste him…
He gasped and pulled me to him, and I shrieked with surprise, a tangle of limbs in the water, slipping into contact with his chest, his legs—
He released me, his eyes flying open with a gasp. “I’m sorry, that was—"
I turned to rest in the water, stared at him, catching my breath.
He looked so concerned. So beautiful. Maybe…
would it be so selfish if I…I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down to kiss again.
He hesitated, and leaned to me, his arms gradually finding their hold around my back.
And I kissed him. I kissed him like I'd never gotten to kiss anyone before, like I'd never get to kiss anyone so kind and good again.
And he was holding me, his breath quickening against my lips, his hand warm on my shoulder, pulling me tight to him.
I felt at first like my mind stuttered, with his chest against mine, my legs over his lap, so much of him so close, but then, if I pulled tight against him, it wasn't like he could see me, and the water was warm, and it was almost… like…wearing clothes…
He gasped again, his fingers in my hair, on my back.
It was like I was hungry for him, like I wanted to drown every thought of the future in his kiss, hold him like I'd never have to let him go.
And he changed, from that first, ginger touch, as if he was hungry for me, too.
I clung to him, and he crushed me in, his lips moving faster with mine.
God, I wanted him. I'd never wanted anything like this before.
He grabbed my hip, pulled me against him, his mouth smothered to mine-
“Rowena— if I go too far—"
I stopped his mouth with mine. He was my tether, in this world without weight, the one solid thing to hold onto. “You’re not.”
I wanted all of him. It was like I was trying to memorize him with touch, to make all of him mine now, his forehead, his hair, his shoulders.
I was claiming the planes of his chest, his back, as he pressed me against him like this was forever.
I was learning the muscles that moved his core and the rhythms of his gasps as I touched him.
I coughed as my braid fell in my face, and he laughed. He pushed it away, and kissed me again.
I raked my fingers through his hair again, his eyes closing as I dragged my fingertips over his body, his sculpted sides, the bone of his hips, and-
His hands found my back. It was wild, clumsy, like a fight where no one was getting hurt. I wanted all of him. And he was holding me against him. He tasted my mouth.
Something broke inside of me, and I melted, like I was a ragdoll, under his hands, under his lips, floating in the water, yielded to him.
And he held me to him again before another gasp, and he relaxed too, breathing hard.
I was floating there, and it was warm, and I looked at him.
I wanted to remember the shapes of his face, the pattern of his breathing.
I wanted to memorize him, because I'd never meet anyone like him again. Not after I got away.
He shuddered, leaned his forehead against mine, drew in gasps of breath that stirred the lazy steam above the water. His eyes opened, searching my face, searching all of me.
"Thank you," he murmured. His fingers brushed my thigh.
"For what?" His eyelashes were perfect.
"For not being angry, that I said no. And for…for this."
I wondered what kind of person Khal thought I was, determined and impatient. Someone who took what she wanted. Not a shrinking wretch doing her best to crawl out of the light. "You're welcome," I whispered.
“I think…we’re going to be happy.”
I rested, with my forehead against the muscle of his arm, breathing in the scent of him. And I let myself forget that that could never be.
I woke up in the darkness, anxiety clawing at my skin.
I stayed very still, listening to Khal breathing in the dark, wishing my body would let me sleep too. I’d fallen asleep beside him on the furs, the hide curtain undulating slowly in a breeze from somewhere I couldn’t see. I’d slept next to him.
I sat up, wrapping my arms around myself. I needed to see. I squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to remember the feeling.
My head ached, but the pulsing subsided.
When I opened my eyes again, the cave was in that kaleidoscope of color and heat, hazy with the drafts of warmth coming off the pool.
Khal was a beautiful furnace, his skin lit from within in shimmering bronze.
Was this how the orcs could see in the dark?
Was all my family’s sorcerous bloodline just orc magic?
No. Likely the orcs’s blood carried gifts from the fae, like my ancestors’ did.
I watched him in his sleep. His chest twitched, like he dreamed of something, and a small sound escaped his lips.
I started to reach for him, froze above the heat that clothed him.
He barely stirred, his eyelids moving, only showing the whites.
He still slept. His lips moved. “Rowena…”
I drew back, to the edge of the furs. I was insane. This was insane.
No. This was bitterly unfair.
I wanted to scream and cry, to fight the rocks till my hands broke against them. No, I could not be tangled up in the hopes and dreams of this boy. He was not going to help me get away. The only rescuer I could rely on was me, and I had to escape.
It wasn’t fair that I’d glimpsed the beauty of a life I’d never know.
It wasn’t fair that I wished I would be the one to fall in love with him.
But I didn’t get fair. I was a survivor, of streets and fights, of magic erupting, of arrest and adoption and every hellish moment apart from Thea.
And now I was a survivor of falling in love with this man, this Khal Drazha’s-son.
No one else was ever going to make anything fair.
But I could save myself. I could choose what I knew was right, and that wasn’t living as a disappointment, as a trophy of a betrayal.
Maybe Khal and I would break each others’ hearts, but better broken apart where he could have people who loved him and I could have a chance at a life outside the shadow of my father’s treachery.
Better broken where he wasn’t being blamed for this.
Whatever he thought, another girl would be lucky to have him. He’d find her. Maybe a different baron’s daughter. Maybe a fairy. He was handsome enough for a fairy. I imagined for a moment a little olive-green baby, staring up with his eyes, and my whole chest hurt.
No. I couldn’t be doing this. Other people had spent my whole life trying to chain me.
I wouldn’t chain myself. I walked silently to the pool, and reached in for Thea’s comb, slid it into my waist pouch beside my stolen coin purse.
I had what I needed to escape. We’d be on the road. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I could…
Khal stirred, and I tensed. “Rowena,” he mumbled.
I felt like my head was going to explode.
I had to get out of here, away from him, away from this.
I pulled on my shift, the dress from the peasant woman with the sorrow bleeding from her eyes.
I tightened my belt. I was just going on a walk, that was all this was.
I slid the latches off the door from memory, and pushed it just enough open.
Something was wrong.
There were voices yelling, coughing, concerned. Several of the other doors were open, the orcs gathering. Someone said, "—wake him up,” but I could feel in my bones the sun hadn’t risen yet. So why-
A shout rose up. I was drawn towards the one door, the center of this trouble, like a moth into a flame.
Glass crashed against the floor. Vrathgar stood in the center of the room in a fire's light, over a bed of furs, shattered glass at his feet releasing a spreading red stain.
"Colored water," he yelled. "They paid us in colored water. "
The figure in the bed was Tyralk. My eyes adjusted, and his face was wrong, twisted in pain. The room was hot, but his teeth chattered. Someone put another blanket over the leg with the bandages, and he cried out in pain at that slight touch.
Blood-sick. He was blood-sick. The wound was killing him. Vrathgar was pulling more vials out of a satchel. Hagmar shouted “Stop, Vrathgar, some of them might be real—" and he pulled the stoppers, started running each under his nose before shattering it on the ground.
“Vrathgar, this is a resting place—"
“Water! He gave us water!” Vrathgar’s voice rang against the walls, a twisted roar.
“Four months of sleeping in ditches, of leading his men, Grezzha almost lost an arm, and he pays us in water!” Another vial shattered against the floor.
He looked up and saw me there, hate in his golden eyes.
“What are you doing here, Baron's daughter? Are you here to watch the outcome of your treachery? Are you here to gloat over your father’s joke? Is this funny?”
I took a step back, almost against my will. The others were murmuring now, watching. I didn’t have anything I could say.
“He never bartered with the wizards. He never made what we bargained for. He sent us off with you and a satchel of fake potions. So that begs the question, did he pay us a fake daughter, too? Or are humans just so useless that he didn’t care if you took the fall?”
I tried to step again, but there was someone behind me.
“Did you know?” he snarled, his teeth feral in the light. “Did you know?”
“No,” I whispered. “No.”
He stepped forward. “In the old days if a man swindled another out of his life’s bread, his own flesh would be forfeit. What do you think of that, baron’s daughter? Should I cut his throat? Should I go back to the old ways and eat his heart in recompense?”